


Cause of Dreams

by Elie



Series: Dreams of Yesterday [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Bruce trying but still failing, Demons, Don't copy to another site, Family, Hurt No Comfort, Resurrection, all is platonic and familial love, not sure were this came from but it might become a longer fic???, not very happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 22:58:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20415700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elie/pseuds/Elie
Summary: Bruce makes a deal with a demon to give up everything, just so he can have his son back.





	Cause of Dreams

The demon looks down at him expectantly. Its hovering half a meter above the ground, its arms crossover over its chest. A red aura surrounds it, and brown spiked horns are poking out from its black hair.

“Resurrection?” the demon asks, unimpressed. It squints at him again and Bruce has to look away for a second as emotions start welling up inside of him.

The demon moves its legless body, all that’s under its torso is some kind of whirlwind, perhaps a portal? Bruce isn’t sure. Either way, it’s coming towards him.  
“Y-yes, my son-” Bruce starts, trying to be humble and calm but his voice still betrays him.

“Ah yes, the second little Robin,” the demon says, shocking Bruce. “Now, don’t look so surprised, we like to keep an eye on you earthlings, especially someone as special as you lot,” the demon smiles, or at least that’s what Bruce thinks the hideous expression is supposed to be. He snaps his mouth shut, doesn’t know what to say, how to explain. 

“What’s his name again, this boy you want back so badly that you dare summon me?” It’s dark all around them, the only light the red glowing from the demon. Bruce isn’t sure they’re even on earth anymore.

“It- it’s Jason. Todd.” 

The light starts switching, blinking, the demon in front of him becoming a blur before - before Jason.

His son, his boy, hovering above the ground. Bruce wants to reach out, to hold him -

“This little one? Barely anything besides flesh and bone,” the voice coming out of Jason’s mouth isn’t right. Too dark, too raspy. Jason never sounded like a demon. Bruce is thrown harshly into reality again, remembering that his son is still dead and he’s still dealing with a demon from the underworld. 

The demon is reaching out its, Jason’s, arms, studying them with eyes thin as slits. Bruce’s heart is yelling for him to run up to it, to feel, to hug Jason, while his brain is screaming at him to stand still. To be logical. 

“How much are you willing to offer? To give up?” Not-Jason asks with a body still clad in Jason’s torn Robin uniform and fragile arms now crossed over its chest again. 

Bruce bites his lip, Clark, Diana, Barry - hell, even Hal, had warned him about contacting a demon. It’s a game you can’t win, they all had said. But hell, Bruce has already lost so much, is there really anything left to lose? 

He needs Jason. The pain, it’s too much. He had buried his parents, and now he has buried his son too. It isn’t supposed to be like this. There must have been a glitch in his universe. Fathers aren’t supposed to outlive their children. 

“I need an answer, Mr. Wayne,” Demon-Jason says, his expression now tight, eyes smaller - he’s impatient. “How much are you willing to give up?” the demon repeats, moving fast towards him and now pressed up against Bruce’s face. The mirroring of Jason is uncanny. There’s even that little scar above his eyebrow from his first real scuffle with a bad guy. It had freaked Bruce out, while Jason had proudly worn the scar as a trophy. 

Now it just makes Bruce feel sick, another reminder that he is the one that caused all of this in the first place. He is responsible for Jason’s death, and now he has to make it right. 

“Everything,” Bruce states, staring straight into the demon’s eyes. Besides hovering above the ground and the voice, its eyes are the only other thing that is completely different from Jason. Much like the aura, they’re glowing red. It looks like something you would see on a sick cat, completely inhuman.

“Everything, you say?” the demon ponders, backing away slightly. The Robin cape flaggers with the movement. 

The demon hovers slightly closer to the ground. “Are you sure? There is no backing out of a deal with a demon, you should know that,” it says and the unreadable expression looks so wrong on Jason’s young face.

“Of course I’m sure!” Bruce can’t stop his emotions, “I just want my son back. I’ll do anything, give you whatever you want.” He wants the pain to stop, to hold his boy again - to take back everything that’s happened and start anew.

“The price is high for resurrection. Death will not be easy to persuade, but,” the demon stops its sentence and moves closer to Bruce again, holding one finger in the air. “If you take a blood oath, one which can not be broken, I might be able to.”

“I’ll do it,” Bruce says without hesitation. A dangerous hope is flickering inside of him.

The demon smiles, a wide horrible grin cracking Not-Jason’s face in two.

The demon whispers something in a language Bruce can’t understand, and a big golden dagger materializes in its hand. The demon pushes it into Bruce’s open palm and it feels heavy as his fingers curl around it. It’s almost as big as a small sword, and he can see the edge is sharp.

“Now, go on,” the demon says, still wearing that unsettling smile. “You do this, and you are agreeing to give up anything, everything,” the demon confirms, settling the deal. The dagger starts to glow, this too with a touch of blood red in it. 

“As long as I get Jason back,” Bruce confirms. The demon nods its little head, black locks flopping into its face. Jason’s locks.

Bruce lifts the dagger. He hesitates. The demon looks unsure. Not-Jasons face morphs into such a Jason expression, like a little sad puppy, it feels like someone just punched Bruce in the gut.  
He pushes the glowing dagger over his palm, drawing blood. It drips on the ground.

Not-Jason reaches out his hand, Bruce notices its fingernails aren’t nails at all but claws. 

Bruce shakes it, feeling the blood mush between their palms.

The mirror image of Jason disappears, in a blinking bright light much like before.

The demon is back, in all its glory. Bigger than before. The red light so much brighter. Staring down at Bruce now, no hint of Jason left. 

“I will have Death resurrect your son, then I will claim our prize; something that is worth a life,” the voice booms and echos in whatever realm they’re in. “Go to the graveyard where you buried him, tomorrow at midnight,” the demon finishes.

The world shifts, swirling in colors and rage.

-

Bruce wakes up on the floor in the warehouse he had deemed safe enough. 

The summoning signal is still painted into the ground, but there’s more to it now. An eye, in the middle of it, that wasn’t there before. The candlelights are blown out. The moon is peering down on him through the glass roof. 

Bruce goes home.

-

He doesn’t tell anyone what he did, he won’t until he knows it worked. He only has to keep the secret to himself for one more day, that much he can do. 

The look Alfred sends him as he passes him on his way out of the cave and up to his bedroom, tells him perhaps Alfred is more aware than Bruce thinks.

-

The next night, he skips out on patrol, turns off the cowl camera and his coms, and goes to the cemetery early.

He sits in front of Jason’s grave, tracing the letters with his fingers. Someone has planted more flowers, lilac ones with now drooping heads. It’s been dry in Gotham for the last few days. The flowers might have been Dick’s doing. Bruce knows the older boy has been visiting even if the two of them haven’t been speaking. Alfred has told him as much, in passing comments when he thinks Bruce isn’t really listening.

Exactly as the clock ticks twelve, midnight, a shadow appears. It grows, more and more, a dark abyss in the already murky night, and then - a light.

The demon steps out. A figure laid on its back and floating in the air is beside it. Bruce can see yellow and green and - Jason.

“Is - is that-,” he can’t bring himself to say the words.

The demon grins, showing off razor-sharp teeth and bloody gums. “Yes, that is Jason Todd, or his soul at least.”

“And you will give him to me?” Bruce says, not one to get rid of suspicion, as he raises to stand on his feet.

“Yes, and when I do, I suggest you start digging,” the demon says, and then Bruce is throwing himself against the dirt again. A golden gravel falls onto the ground by his side. It looks a little like the dagger he used to take the oath with, and he grabs it without a second thought.

He looks up as the demon makes a sound. Bruce watches as Jason, his soul, turns into more of a cloud of white light. He pushes the gravel against the earth and is almost afraid to harm the soul as he digs in while the soul sinks into the ground. Into Jason’s grave, towards his body.

He thinks the demon might be helping him, the earth gives away after his movements almost too easily. Still, he feels like it takes too much time to hit the wooden casket where his son is laying.  
The last of the earth flies away, confirming his suspicion that the demon had a hand in how easy it was to dig. Demons aren’t known for their patience, after all. 

His fingers shake as he goes to open the casket, afraid of what he’ll find.

“Do it, if not you want the boy to suffocate in there?” the demon comments, now hovering above his shoulder. Bruce can smell its sickly sweet breath. 

Bruce throws the top open, pictures of half-rotting bodies and human bones prone in his mind. What he sees is something entirely different.

Jason.. he looks perfect. Where there were once gruesome scars from the Joker and the explosion, there are now only old healed wounds. Even the autopsy scares have almost faded. His skin looks healthy, a little on the pale side, but his cheeks are rosy and his hair is still jet-black. His eyes are closed though, no sign of being awake, and Bruce feels worry takes its place in his mind. 

“He is only asleep. Raising from the dead is energy-consuming,” the demon explains, maybe sensing Bruce’s feelings.

Most important of all, Bruce can see Jason’s chest rising and falling. He’s breathing. Bruce cradles his son close, finally holding his boy in his arms again. He doesn’t care that the demon sees when a few tears drop down from his chin.

With his precious cargo in hand, he climbs out of the godforsaken grave. It’s an awful reminder now, one he plans to get rid of as soon as possible.

Bruce turns to leave, he doesn’t care what the demon has to say now, he has Jason and that’s all that matters.

“I think you’re forgetting about my payment,” the demon’s voice booms, Bruce can feel the vibrations of it in the earth.

Bruce turns back again to look at the demon. Jason is still asleep in his arms with his head rested on Bruce’s chest.

“There is no price as high as a life,” the demon ponders, “Death did not give up Jason’s soul easily. She had taken a liking to it, to how tortured it was.” 

Bruce feels dread pool into his stomach, fill its way up to his chest and throat.

“The only thing we could agree on was well - a life for a life.” The demon isn’t hovering anymore, but standing on jean-clad legs on the ground. This new transformation looks almost human, besides the still glowing aura and the red eyes. The horns are still there though, just poking through strands of hair. 

If he has to give up his life for Jason’s, then so be it. He goes to put Jason down, pushing his nose into the boy’s hair to breath in his scent one last time. He places a kiss to the crown of his son’s head.

The demon interrupts him.

“Oh no - no Bruce, it’s not you,” it says.

Bruce feels cold, too cold, all of a sudden. Like someone has frozen his stomach and chest, and made his heart beat fast in an attempt to break out of the ice. 

“You’re not young enough, and too aware of this world,” it continues. A figure starts floating towards them, appearing out of the dark. He can’t see who it is and he doesn’t want too because-

He had promised to give anything. Everything. Bruce had promised the demon his everything, just to have Jason back. He had been so desperate, once he had understood there was a real possibility that he would get to hold his youngest again. Bruce understands now, that he’s slipped up. Not thought through the consequences, not thought about anything besides Jason at all. 

“A life for a life, one son.. for another.”

Bruce, with Jason still in his arms, falls to his knees.

The figure floats up to them and.. it’s Dick. 

He’s wearing his Nightwing suit, but his mask is gone. It looks like he’s been in a fight, he has a black eye and a busted lip, and he’s unconscious. His hands are tied behind his back, and his feet tied together. He’s floating above ground beside the demon, head tipped down onto his chest. He’s is still breathing.

“No - that’s not what I meant!” Bruce says, laying Jason down as careful as he can on the cemetery ground and stepping closer to the demon. He wants to reach out for Dick but the boy hovers just out of reach. It almost looks like he flickers, like an old light about to go out. Bruce furrows his brows, gears turning in his head but he can’t find any explanation, his mind shortcutting because of fear and desperation. 

“You said anything and everything,” the demon reminds him.

“Please,” he rasps, his voice raw and emotional, “don’t kill him. Don’t take him from me, I, I need them both. Take me instead,” Bruce is desperate, begging. He never thought of this as a possibility, never in his wildest fantasies.

He just wanted Jason back, and was blinded by his grief.

“I won’t kill him,” the demon says, its voice too nonchalant for Bruce’s liking. Yet, he let himself hold onto a glimmer of hope. It’s quickly crushed as the demon continues.

“I won’t let you have him either. Death requested him, the only price she could accept. He is special, she says, the way he has held onto the light as he has waded through dark and grimy waters is remarkable. She would love to break him in. While your soul as of right now, is of no value to us.” 

A black hole, a portal, is opening behind the demon.

Jason makes a sound behind his back, a sigh, and Bruce’s stomach twists as he reaches out towards Dick. His hands hit thin air, the demon moving too quickly and playing its tricks, dragging Dick out of his reach.

“You should be thankful I don’t murder the boy as an offering, right here in front of you,” the demon snarls as it bats Bruce’s hands away. It pushes Dick further towards the blackness. 

“I gave you your son back. A life for a life, a son for a son, one Robin for another. It’s a fair price. We could have taken more, as you so foolishly said you would give up everything.”  
Bruce stands frozen to the ground as Dick disappears into the blackness. Bruce can’t see him anymore, his blood rushing and his heart beating so loud. His oldest son, gone.

“You should be grateful,” the demon says and Bruce feels everything but. His emotions are fighting inside of him, conflicting and confusing. The demon steps into the portal like he is stepping over a small fence. One foot in and one foot out. Its human form is almost scarier than its demon one. 

“We won’t be seeing each other again,” it says, so final. The portal starts closing. The demon disappears. 

“No!” Bruce yells and he is moving, running, towards the portal. His arms reaching out. This can’t be it. He won’t allow it. The demon - there has to be another way. Another price.

The portal closes before he gets to it. A domino mask falls to the ground in its place. Bruce is on his knees, digging into the dirt and staining his suit even more. He holds the little piece of fabric in his hands, his fingers feeling the soft material contrasting with the hard tech in them.

“Bruce?” a voice behind him.

Jason. 

Bruce turns around and it’s Jason, standing there, his Robin suit somehow on even if he was buried in a black suit and tie. He has the boy in his arms before his brain is catching up with his movements, and tears are streaming down his face.

He has given up everything for this. Now he wonders if the price was too high. His mind is a muddled mess of emotions, as his hand placed on Jason’s back curls tightly around the domino left behind.

A life for a life, the demon said.

Bruce feels like he’s paid double. The demon might have given him Jason, might have mended that grief but now.. now there is a whole new piece of Bruce’s soul missing, and where it once was is now filled with even bigger guilt and grief.

“What’s going on, Bruce?” Jason asks, voice muffled by how Bruce is pressing the boy against his chest.

He can’t bring himself to answer. To admit what he has done. Jason will never forgive him if he learns the truth. Jason and Dick might not have been the best of friends, but they had started to become brothers, before. They had shared a somewhat mutual form of respect.

A son for a son.  
His grief for his youngest for the grief of his oldest.

As he holds Jason close, he realizes there is no way he will be able to move on from this.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and/or comments are greatly appreciated, and if you want to yell at me somewhere else my tumblr is letgraysonsheart.tumblr.com :)


End file.
